Skippy the bush kangaroo

I second Alorael's comment on sliths. In one game I had a human elite warrior and a slith as my front line fighters. These are both equivalent in terms of XP penalty and they were, thus, at almost identical levels throughout the game. From the middle to late-middle of the game the slith just couldn't cut it because his defensive skills weren't sufficient. Even with insane buffing from augmentation and enduring armour my slith had a nasty habit of dying regularly. Corollary: Parry - learn it, love it, use it.

I second Alorael's comment on sliths. In one game I had a human elite warrior and a slith as my front line fighters. These are both equivalent in terms of XP penalty and they were, thus, at almost identical levels throughout the game. From the middle to late-middle of the game the slith just couldn't cut it because his defensive skills weren't sufficient. Even with insane buffing from augmentation and enduring armour my slith had a nasty habit of dying regularly. Corollary: Parry - learn it, love it, use it.

I think: What's the point of changing the theft system or allowing murdering? Regardless of how draconian the theft system is, players will work out bugs in the implementation to steal things without consequences anyway. Callous adventurers will also kill anyone they can. It's just not real life and never will be. A case in point is the game Cythera. In that game taking something that was 'not yours' caused problems regardless of whether anyone could see you or not. People worked out that if you moved the item before taking it you could steal with impunity - and the status quo was restored. In the end, people who care, won't steal or murder and will put other self-imposed limits on their playing; and people who don't care, will steal and use any and all cheats they can lay their hands on. The current system works fine - those who like stealing from destitute farmhands or murdering them can do so and those who don't, don't. Neither is especially inconvenienced by the game mechanics and can play the game the way they like. The net result is more fun for more people.

Quote: Originally written by Synergy67: Did you know it already or did you have to Google it? ...Severed Heads, a band originally from Sydney and now centered in Darlinghurst? Where is that? I didn't see it on my world map. I had to Google it. Darlinghurst is in Sydney - its a suburb very close to the CBD. Doesn't sound like they moved at all. If you go to here and enter Darlinghusrt, in the state of NSW you will see where it is. Zoom out a few levels to get some perspective. The area called "Sydney" on the map is just the CBD. Hope you enjoy the beta testing.

Quote: Originally written by Synergy67: If I randomly mentioned " Severed Heads " , would you know why? Well, if you mentioned it randomly I wouldn't. But, as it so happens, not really .

1) Have a look at the credits for any Spiderweb game. It lists the beta testers - that should give you an idea. 2) I found it fun but there are some not-strictly-fun work-like elements to it (like paying attention and trying to precisely document bugs) 3) I think Jeff goes for multiple beta testers going over the game a few times each rather than one beta tester going over and over and over... 4) The knowledge of a job well done and your place in immortality (or at least, your name in the credits). You also get a free copy of the game.

Quote: Originally written by hooh: And if its cheating, the why did Jeff make this part of the game? Because the alternative was a real pain. When only your Shaper could pick up stuff you had to mess around in tight spaces moving a little at a time to pick up something that was in a corner of a room or similar. It was even worse if you happened to be at the back of the pack as most Shapers would be. Using creations to steal is an unintended consequence. But, the in game restrictions on stealing aren't exactly high regardless. You should try Cythera - it stains your soul - and even there people worked out ways around the restrictions.

I have found that playing Avernum on a laptop (well any computer without a numeric keypad) is a pain. At least on my Powerbook putting the fake numpad on locks out all other keys - so you will constantly be switching back and forth (don't know about your technical problem - but it does work on my laptop. There is a special key which lights up when the numpad is locked in, F6 I think). Also, the alignment of the keys is off compared with a numpad so you get more confused. My solutions are, in order of preference: 1) Plug in an external keyboard with a numeric keypad, 2) Use the mouse to control movement - in the vicinity of the party it becomes an arrow and you just move it in a circle around your party to pick directions. You can get quite quick at using this. 3) Just use the arrow keys. They only give you four directions of movement but, except for combat, that's enough to get anywhere you want. Oh, as for up arrow being NW etc. That makes much more sense to me because it aligns with what you see on the screen given the pseudo-3D projection. Press up and your character moves up on the screen (which happens to be NW). The same is true for numpad movement - N is actually 9 rather than 8. Forget about the labels given to the directions - the arrow keys correspond directly to what happens on the screen.

Quote: Originally written by poolwin2001: Dont you guys think that this topic had gone way off topic?? Way off topic? No. There is a clear thread that runs from your original post all the way to the end. Indeed, we're not even talking six degrees of separation here - two at most. Way off-topic would be discussing whether a thread is on topic or not. Oh, ... never mind.

Playing as a shaper the first time through I found money to be an issue. It costs a lot of money to get, for example, Lady Anjil to train you in shaping skills and there wasn't that much money to be had. Playing as an agent the second time around I found that money was not an issue. Basically I had fewer things to spend my money on. But I had also learned what worked and what didn't in the game. When you go through the first time you are apt to try everything and this will bleed your cash. At any rate, in the latter game the basic unit of account is around 10,000 gold and you don't find that kind of cash lying around.

It's easiest to use the v1.0.2 patch rather than use the solution posted here earlier (it involved messing about with debugging commands and is 'inelegant'). Of course, if you don't have a F13 and F14 on your keyboard you might want to read this topic . Edit: And on reflection I realise you might have been saying that you got the v1.0.2 patch and it still doesn't work. In that case, using the fix above may help. Alternatively, the problem is that it will only work if you start from scratch (or at least from before you interact with Khyryk). The final option is that it still doesn't fix Greta's upgrade - I don't know because I have been avoiding the patch because I don't have F13 or F14 on my keyboard.

Agents stop being wannabe mages and start being gods. Happy? In other news: There really is a Santa Claus!

I have a PowerBook and the change irks me - no F13 or F14 here either. But, I solved the problem when they were on F3 and F4 by using the fn key and changing the keyboard control panel so that I had to hit fn-F4 or whatever to adjust the volume rather than just F4. I've also done this because a number of programs I use also make use of the F keys. Do iBooks have the same option?

Middle of the road doesn't really cut it in this game. While in previous ones, going middle of the road allowed you to get the best bits of both sides, here it gives you nothing much. Both sides will say, "I won't teach you this or that until you prove yourself". One of the points of MoR in previous games was to become the strongest you could by collecting all the goodies from all sides. The equivalent strategy here is probably to exhibit bipolar disorder. Start out as a 100% committed Shaper until you are ready to leave Dhonal's Isle (because that's where most of their goodies are). After that, if you are so inclined, you can switch sides and go 100% Rebel. However, there is less need to switch sides to the Rebel's because most of their goodies consist of canisters and, given enough living tools or mechanics skill, you can just take them regardless. The training that is offered by the Shapers is less amenable to such larceny. Finally, if your reason for MoR as a strategy was that you wanted to remain ethically pure and rejected both sides, you can't do it in this game - you must choose -- eventually. Given that, you might as well choose as early as possible.

I think you will find that they are still susceptible to area effect attacks such as 'aura of flames' from Inferno Worms. When I played through the first time I concentrated on Battle Shaping and decided it was a mistake. Sure Thahd Shades were neat but they couldn't really hack it against the tougher monsters. Also, you were all right for most things but some monsters were just impossible. This was mostly because battle shaping is all about melee attacks. Burning shrubs and inferno worms - you're toast; Submission turrets - you can't get close. Taking on a room of burning shrubs with Thahds and Alphas was the most difficult battle I faced in the entire game. When I tried it again with decent missle attacks it was dead easy.

Well the sdf hint from Seletine worked for me. She ended up with a pretty powerful essence orbs attack if I recall correctly - at the very least it was blue instead of green and didn't do acid damage any more.

This was something that came up in beta testing - moving to and picking up items was very tricky when you had a large group of creations and your shaper was not at the front of the pack. If you wanted to pick something up in a corner or small room you had to individually select your character and move them rather than moving your whole party. More often than you not you would end up positioning your shaper out of reach of whatever you were after. It was annoying. The discussion here highlights an interesting side-effect of the change. Nonetheless, I believe the advantages in terms of streamlined gameplay of the current arrangement make it superior to the alternative. Maybe a tweak to the stealing code could close the loophole - but it is kind of nifty as it is. Interesting thought: While a battle alpha may not be quick, maybe it takes something and then says to the shopkeeper in a Mafioso goon voice "You didn't see anything - did you?"

You can get through to Akhari Blaze without killing Litalia as a rebel with a leadership of around 10. However, if you choose one of the dialogue options (maybe some others) in her second conversation with you (where she wants to prolong conversation with another human) - "Why do you want to attack me?" she will oblige even though you talked her out of it in the first conversation. I hit this the first time and then went back to the Autosave and chose a different dialogue path and she didn't go aggro on me. Probably best to describe it as a bug...

To make it clear for all the other laptop users out there: You can toggle the behaviour of your F keys - using the keyboard preferences you need to have the option 'Use the f1-f12 keys for custom actions' checked so that G3 works as normal and you hit fn-F3 or whatever for all the special actions.

Adding endurance to your creations would seem to be the difference. I think I'll have to work out the highest essence to endurance conversion rate available to maximise meatshield performance. I'd always assumed that it was more efficient to create another creation rather than add endurance to an old one.

Depends when you got the recipe - if you don't use the hintbook/read this forum you need to not only have the ingredients but the recipe. And don't forget the demon's bile (although that seems to be a little more common now than when I first went through). I made the all-protector first because that was the first thing I had all the ingredients for with the recipe.

Not so much pot calls kettle, as tiger calls alley cat calls pussy cat . I'd be interested to know what you did it with - when I tried it earlier on with battle alphas/betas they couldn't dish it out fast enough (at least for the fifth stone fight).

You are all pussies! I took the Golems in a toe to toe fight without any of this running away wussiness (just a bit of cowering in the corner while my creations took care of business). Mind you, by the time I was ready for the final fight my creations consisted of two eyebeasts and something else I can't remember (maybe a rotghroth). As a shaper I was a weed so had to make sure that none of them got anywhere near me - but two hasted eyebeasts can really dish it out. Other than that I just healed and battle raged them as required. By the end the eyebeasts were all out of spell points and were attacking the Golems with melee - but they got them all eventually.

Quote: Originally written by Student of Trinity: In G2 the EC was far and away the best item, but in G3 I have found something I like slightly better. So right now I'm actually wishing I had saved my components and held off forging the EC. I would guess that it depends what type of character you are playing. As a shaper I only needed to be strong enough to withstand any area effect spells because my creations were doing the real grunt work. So, the creator's belt and a five-stone bracelet (admittedly not forged, but taking up the glove slot) were the main game. Quick action, parry etc. - What's the point? An all-protector - maybe as a swap item.

4) If you are less than steadfast in your love of the shapers you can also sell research notes to the woman running the shop on the outside north wall of Fort Wilton. Alwyn is scandalised by such actions.